Board mounted electrical connectors are typically connected to a printed circuit board either by surface mount technology (SMT) or soldered through hole connections which may be accomplished through wave soldering techniques. In either instance, it is necessary to first accurately position the electrical connector so that its contacts engage complimentary contact surfaces on the printed circuit board, then temporarily hold the electrical connector in place, and finally form the electrical connections by SMT, wave soldering, or any other suitable method.
The step of temporally holding the connector in place over the contact interface is typically accomplished by a holding device which is incorporated into the housing of the electrical connector. These holding devices may be integrally molded into the housing or may be separate metal boardlocks which are fixed to the housing as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,111 by Roger L. Thrush et al. These boardlocks serve several purposes. First, they extend from the mounting face of the housing beyond the contact tails so that they engage openings in the printed circuit board first to insure that the connector is properly aligned for the tails to pass through the contact openings in the circuit board without being damaged. Secondly, once inserted into the openings of the circuit board, the boardlocks serve to hold the connector such that the mounting face of the housing remains flush or in engagement with the printed circuit board along its entire length.
The patent by Roger Thrush et al. teaches such a boardlock which serves both to align the electrical connector with the openings of the printed circuit board and to hold the printed circuit board in place during the soldering process.
These boardlocks are typically designed for a specific board opening with a variation of plus or minus 0.001 inch. As a result, a different boardlock is required for each different board opening. If such a boardlock is utilized in a board opening which is smaller than that specified, the insertion force required to secure the boardlock increases undesirably. The board openings however are not standardized and therefore each application will require a different geometry board lock to achieve the necessary retention forces and the desired insertion forces for the connector.
A problem exits in that each connector family must be designed with several different boardlocks in order to accommodate end applications having different diameter boardlock receiving openings in the circuit boards. While the board lock shown by Thrush et al. would fit into several different size board openings because it is compressible about two end points, the insertion force required to insert the connector becomes prohibitively high as the board opening is decreased.
It is therefore desirable to provide a versatile boardlock having the rigidity necessary for connector alignment and handling purposes and the flexibility to be inserted into several different size board openings while minimizing the range of insertion force necessary to accommodate the different size board openings.